Ronald Pitt

Background

Ronald E. Pitt assumed the position of Vice president for Academic Affairs at Rhode Island College in September of 2008. He was a faculty member at Cornell University for 20 years and served as Director of Faculty Development at Bryant University and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Bridgewater State University before coming to the college. He has a B.S. and M.S. in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University.

After completing his Ph.D. at Cornell in 1980, Dr. Pitt held positions of assistant, associate, and full professor in Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell from 1980-1999. His research interests centered on mathematical modeling of microbial and enzymatic processes, cellular mechanics, and low-temperature biology and cryopreservation. He developed and taught the sophomore-level Engineering Applications in Biological Systems and the junior/senior-level Physiological Engineering. He was the major advisor to 16 master’s and Ph.D. students and minor committee member for another 20 graduate students as well as several undergraduate researchers. He published 80 peer-reviewed articles while at Cornell and was the principal or co-principal investigator on federal and industry grants totaling $800,000. During his last three years at Cornell, he was the undergraduate coordinator for his department and served on the Academic Integrity Hearing Board and the Petitions Committee, and he was the principal author of the department’s ABET accreditation self-study. He was a contributor to the Cornell Net Carbohydrate and Protein System animal nutritional model.

As Director of Faculty Development at Bryant University from 1999-2003, Dr. Pitt focused on the development of programs and resources to support the academic qualifications and professional development of the faculty, with a particular focus on the integration of technology. He was the lead administrator in securing, installing, and administering the Blackboard system and conducted faculty training and provided student support for two years after its initiation. He served as managing editor of the Bryant Literary Review, was principal investigator on a $250,000 grant from the Davis Educational Foundation, and was vice coordinator of the institution’s ten-year reaffirmation of AACSB accreditation. He taught one section of CIS 361 Digital Multimedia each semester.

As Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Bridgewater State University from 2003-2008, Dr. Pitt’s primary responsibility was to provide administrative oversight of the Center for the Advancement of Research and Teaching, the Office of Grants and Sponsored Projects, the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, the Honors and Undergraduate Research Programs, the Director of Teaching and Learning, as well as new-faculty orientation, sabbatical leaves, and professional development funds. He was the principal author of the institution’s five-year interim report to NEASC.

Selected Publications

Houser, J.B., and R.E. Pitt. 2008. Simulation of soil loss and available water content to assess the sustainability of selected farm practices. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture 32:507-527.

Miller, R., and R. Pitt. 2005. Revision of general education: Pathways to success. Presentation and workshop at the February, 2005 meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Atlanta, GA. Included authorship of a fictional case, “The Case of the DOA Curriculum.”

Pitt, R., and M. Young. 2005. “Using your website to support and promote faculty initiatives in program assessment.” Presentation at April, 2005 assessment conference of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) in Portland, ME.

Selected Awards

1999, 1996 J. P. and Mary Barger Excellence in Teaching Awards from the College of Engineering.

1995 Professor of Merit Award from the senior class of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.